Anyone have any good coping strategies?

I’m sorry if the pics of sweets offends anyone, but it was probably one of the few things that managed to get me out of my own mind today. I don’t eat sweets often, but indulging helped with a bit of the sadness that’s been plaguing me.

I mentioned in a previous entry that my uncle died a few months ago. But I’ve come to the realization that its been more than a few months. He passed in October, which makes it 7 almost 8 months now that he’s been gone. 7 months where I can’t go a week without dreams surrounding him. 7 months ago when crying wasn’t part of the normal family routine. Its a rarity to go a day without someone crying.

Although it normally isn’t me. I try not to cry in front of my family, at least not over this subject. But I think it may be time I try to talk about things…to write my feelings so at least I can acknowledge their existence.

My uncle’s death was sudden. It was unfair. I wish I could blame a car accident or some health problem, but it honestly wasn’t anything like that. He took his own life, and I don’t think I’ve come to accept the fact that the person responsible, who I should blame – is the same person I miss.

Its impossible to guess all the factors that led to the decision. What I do know is that he was depressed beforehand and that his depression started with losing his job. I had convinced him to talk to my therapist when his depression first started, but he had been a nurse…and he was good at only showing what he wanted to. He hated going to see her. He hated the depression medicine she suggested. He hated all of us for trying to have him treated. Which makes it all more painful to think back on.

My grandma lives in an eternal loop of “what ifs”, wondering if she could have changed a minor detail to save his life. And I live in knowing that I did what I could to help, and it wasn’t enough.

It makes it difficult, his suicide. Not just for the obvious reasons. I’ve battled clinical depression and anxiety since I was a young teenager, so it feels like my harmful emotions have always been there. I fight with my mind on a daily basis – to get out of bed, to go to school, to eat a meal. So his suicide throws what I thought I knew about myself out of place.

I don’t get suicidal, maybe because my anxiety makes me worry about what would happen to others if I was gone. Instead, I become passive. I sleep for a couple of days, or skip showers. Or I take too many showers. I cope as I can. I just get this feeling of guilt knowing I can cope with my monsters, but he couldn’t battle his. Of course, I’m not him and for all I know he had been having problems before the job loss. Maybe he had his own issues but didn’t verbalize them.

Whatever the case may be, his death has thrown what I understood about myself into question. Sleep used to be my refuge, to make the depressing thoughts go away. Now, I have dreams where he visits me. They aren’t weird, its always daily events. Like him cooking or just some family get together. And my subconscious tricks me into believing the dream is real and everything is okay. Until I wake up, and I remember it really isn’t. And then I cry and cry until I realize I have to move or do something so I don’t fall back asleep and start the cycle.

His death took away one of my major escapes from reality. And it gave more problems. He was like a father to me, and to know he gave into his own thoughts breaks down the child-like adoration that had built throughout my life. Its a horrible feeling knowing that the person you considered a hero was actually human, and that humans die.

There’s so many complicated feelings about his death, about my own issues that have only gotten worse. It’s hard to sort out and none of this will probably make any sense to anyone else. I know my thoughts on his death are jumbled and its why I don’t share them. I also know my family is the last place to talk about this stuff, because its like they have more of a place to grieve. If I bring him up, they talk about their feelings. So there’s no point in trying.

Maybe I’ll expand on this more as I can. It was all just bothering me and I couldn’t sleep with the thoughts cluttered. His death is also the reason why I’ve responded to some journal entries that seem suicidal in nature. Because he died this way, I don’t want someone else to live through the feelings I have. And if I can give even a little encouragement to try and help aide someone thinking about the same choice as his, I want to try.

If anyone is reading this…what are some other ways I can try to get through these thoughts or to replace how I used to use sleep to block out depression?

Jenbunni

I'm a college student. I journal as a kind of therapy and I'm trying this out in the hope it might feel like I can share my writings with someone else. Most of them don't make sense, but almost everything I have written in notebooks has been during times of emotional duress.

2 thoughts on “Anyone have any good coping strategies?”

I must be very hard for you, but I think you are doing the best you can. Especially reaching out to others, myself included, and offering words of encouragement. I know you must of tried with your uncle to.